Education Department Orders Universities To Name Foreign Donors After Years of Lax Oversight

American universities will be required to publicly disclose the identities of foreign donors after years of non-enforcement, the Department of Education said this week. Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, public and private universities must report to the Department of Education any donations and contracts exceeding $250,000. However, department officials say institutions have long flouted the statute.“The law is very clear,” a senior department official told the Daily Signal. “It says that the Department of Education has to make available for public inspection the reports submitted by the universities. We’re not doing that right now.” The official said only 40 percent of universities currently comply with Section 117White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the renewed effort Tuesday, posting on X that “Taxpayers Will Finally See Which Foreign Entities Fund US Universities.”The initiative builds on earlier Trump administration efforts to bring transparency to foreign donations at federally funded universities. In April, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Education Department to “end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions and safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation” by enforcing existing disclosure laws.The agency has faulted the Biden administration for allowing compliance to erode. “The Biden-Harris Administration turned a blind eye to colleges and universities’ legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in April 2025.The Education Department has also launched a new online portal for reporting foreign funding. Last month, the department disclosed that American universities received $5.2 billion in large foreign gifts in 2025 alone, with Qatar leading all donors at $1.1 billion. The United Kingdom and China ranked second and third.The top university recipients included Carnegie Mellon University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, each receiving nearly $1 billion from foreign sources. Stanford University and Harvard University ranked third and fourth, at $775 million and $324 million, respectively.Such funding flows have stoked concerns that foreign governments are using donations to shape university curricula or gain access to sensitive research.In September, a House Committee on Education and Workforce interview with outgoing Northwestern University president Michael Schill illuminated how the regime-controlled Qatar Foundation exercises control over the school’s satellite campus in Doha. Under Northwestern Qatar’s agreement with the foundation, students and faculty are effectively barred from criticizing the Qatari government.The Middle East Forum, in a report on Northwestern’s Qatari campus, warned that the partnership “is not just an academic collaboration, but a strategic effort by Qatar to influence U.S. higher education.” Through financial investment, faculty exchanges, and governance arrangements, Qatar is “shaping both the ideological climate and policy decisions at Northwestern,” the think tank stated.

Education Department Orders Universities To Name Foreign Donors After Years of Lax Oversight

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